GP4: 1994 Mod v4.2

It's now been 30 years since 1994. 

The dates 30th April and 1st May are the most poignant days of that year in Formula 1. 

We remember the two lives lost that black weekend, both born a few months apart, departed this earth at 33 years of age. Austrian rookie, who has completed just one race, Roland Ratzenberger, and three time Formula 1 World Champion, Ayrton Senna. 

It is fitting then to be able to bring you the latest update to the 1994 mod. 

To commemorate this, I have updated some of the CSM graphics in dedication to the lives lost in doing what they loved. This also comes with menu backgrounds created by KerleyF1. 

This mod is in somewhat perpetual work-in-progress, and I've been beavering away at a wealth of updates to bring to you in this ever growing mod. The mod was getting out of hand in terms of disk space and it is only going to grow. I've removed the option for the standard textures, you can choose between high or low resolution textures. This alone has reduced the size of the mod by nearly 2 GB. 

I've tried to simplify the mod structure a bit more, and they now appear in your CSM mods list as three distinct mods (whilst they share a lot of the same architecture and files). This mod is a new stand alone version, so it shouldn't interfere with previous installs. 

1. GP2 Mod - this is a tribute to the old Grand Prix 2 game, and in my opinion, this version of the mod that is the most fun to play. Thanks again to Whills who allowed me to convert his work. There's nothing new in this update on the GP2 mod. The sounds on these are a work in progress, the text files just need adjusting to make the samples from the original game work better.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Basic Mod - this is largely the cars and mod as it was in v3.0. Original cars by McKey415, Oggo and Loren, helmets by Eugenio Faria and Hagi, and 2D rims by Ulf (Alesi fan) and Turbo_Lover. There are no driver changes to go with generic performances and a simple choice of which 11th team to run. Where updates were done on the original cars, they will appear in this version of the mod, e.g. more track specific liveries, updates to the cockpits and diffusers.
   This mod variant is for those who have lower spec machines, and it also preserves the legacy of this mod's history, I don't want to go overwriting this classic work. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Advanced Mod - this blends in the newer and more detailed work with the original mod: 
• new cars (from the Spanish GP onwards), 
• new driver specific helmet shapes by Oggo and textures by me, 
• team specific 3D rims by Ulf (Alesi fan), Oggo and Turbo_lover.
• all driver changes, and a best qualifier option for Team 11. 

The advanced part of the mod still has much more work planned, but there would be no update available to download for years if I were to hold on to all this work until it was completed. 

So what's new in this mod then?

I've included more up to date drivers by crosire, which can be applied by choosing the 'dx9' option in the DirectX menu line in CSM. There are two benefits - firstly this enables the EAX effects and gives a more accurate sound, like driving through the Monaco tunnel, you get more reverb. Secondly, it should reduce crashes to the game, allowing a more stable game by using all cores in GPxPatch. In my experience, it has reduced but not eradicated crashes, so you will have to change the GPxPatch settings yourself if you wanted to use all CPU cores. 

Helmets

The 1994 mod has benefitted from some fantastic helmet sets. I created a very low resolution version way back when. It was a full grid, but the resources were difficult to find at the time, but it was OK, because it was so low res, and my lack of ability back then could be masked. 

Then Hagi made some new 2k textures which are stunning. I still paint at the same resolution today, so they still stand up. So when I transferred and lightly amended the helmets to fit Öggo's Arai GP-3 helmet (in version 4.0), they still looked pretty good. At the time, the Arai GP-3 helmet template and shape was barely used in GP4, although it was being used in other games. 

Special helmets weren't really a thing back in 1994, yet there were 46 Drivers in total, who competed in 28 seats. Helmet variances are due to changes in teams, rules on tobacco sponsorship, and other sponsorship related changes. 

I'm really grateful to the Motorsport Images website, which has a ton of photos from each GP, well labelled and easy to find what you need. Other sites, old and new, also helped. I'm also grateful for 'What the font' function on myfonts.com where you can upload images and it finds the closest matching fonts. Thanks also to Quickslick, the 'logo master' who has a fantastic collection. 

Bell Helmets

For some time, I had hoped for and pushed Öggo to create the Bell helmet. We saw that ASR Formula and EKO formula had attempted their own version, and Öggo had enough motivation to create his own from scratch. This project then grew and not only included the M3 shape, but others including the XFM-1, both of which were used in 1994. His excellent pack includes other shapes used in F1 and Indy for much of the early-mid 90s. 

The face shape was done by Alesi_fan and I've tried to get good high resolution images of their faces from 1994. 

The first batch of helmets are all on the Bell M3 shape. I'm doing these alphabetically which means we start with Philippe Alliot, I mean, what business does Alliot have driving a McLaren (albeit a team fallen from grace) in 1994. But this was very much a deal with Peugeot, although by this stage, talks with moving the Peugeot contract over to a cash-strapped Jordan and talks with Mercedes were progressing. Anyway, we have Alliot's helmet, a nice design on the top half, completely white and boring on the bottom half. This helmet has been completely reworked from Hagi's original version. Philippe stood in for Hakkinen for one race in Hungary in the McLaren, before competing in a Larrousse for the following round in Belgium. This must have been a rushed deal because they only managed to take off the Marlboro stickers and replace the visor strip on this helmet. Some of the McLaren sponsors remained on his lid for the Larrousse appearance. 

Then there's Paul Belmondo's helmet. I managed to find a good source to make my own version of the SGI logo on the side, and I'm quite pleased with how this has turned out, because for years I had no idea what that logo was. Variants include the introduction of the IGOL logo which was then moved for the final few races. 

Olivier Beretta drove almost the full season with Larrousse, and his bright red and yellow helmet has also been redesigned from scratch and has some fairly significant differences to Hagi's version. Larrousse ran a special Kronenbourg livery for 3 rounds early in the season, and the visor strips were amended on the helmets to reflect that. 

Eric Bernard's helmet is next. The blue and red stripes on the side and back are completely redesigned and based on real photos. There's a few visor strip variations for the non-tobacco races, and he made one appearance in a Lotus, in a deal that saw Herbert transferred the other way. Both only did one race for their new teams, Herbert famously moving to Benetton, whilst Bernard moved out of the sport altogether. Bernard's helmet has a red visor screw, the only one I've noticed that has changed and is one other way to distinguish his from team-mate Panis' helmet which has the same pallette and similar designs. 

Martin Brundle had three distinct designs through 1994. He had been running the same design for a few years, not uncommon in this era, with simple red and blue stripes going all the way around the helmet. That changed mid-season, with nice curves being added to those lines. This design was refined for the later part of the season, with the red no longer extending to the bottom of the helmet. I've decided to use Hagi's helmet (albeit slightly amended) for the mid-season variation, but I intend to revisit this in a future update. The early season design I had already made on the Arai previously, but this has been updated to fit the Bell M3. I've created an all-new late season helmet, I really like the rear of the helmet. There's also non-tobacco variants, and Tencel didn't appear at the first race. 

Eric Comas ran not one, not even two, but three helmet shapes in 1994. And he wasn't the only one to do so. He started the year with the M3 helmet, and we have the Tourtel and Kronenbourg visor strip variants. In Silverstone, he actually tried an Arai helmet, but that clearly didn't work out, because by the next race, he would switch to the Bell XFM-1 for the remainder of the season. Comas was personally sponsored by exotic sunglasses firm Cebe, and there are some notable pictures of him wearing sun glasses inside his helmet. So you'll see this on the Kronenbourg variant where I know he definitely used them .

Fittipaldi's helmet is all new. The number of tear-drop shapes on the top had decreased in 1994, and Hagi had clearly based his helmet recreation on an older version. The logos are also new, and he ran a Senna tribute logo following his compatriot's fatal accident in Imola. Only four of the thirteen teams kept the same two drivers for the entirety of the season, Footwork, Tyrrell, Minardi and the Pacific teams. 

Pierluigi Martini ran the Bell M3 helmet for one race, before opting to wear the XFM-1 for the rest of the season. Whilst he did run his traditional colours at parts of the opening race weekend, he actually ran an all white version for the race itself. The change in Best Company Shoes logo is also reflected in this helmet set. 

I had created every race version of Schumacher's 1994 season on the Arai helmet previously, but I've decided to create the helmet from scratch for this Bell version. That includes a newly painted top, which had varying number of stars (sometimes 5, sometimes 7) and orientation too. So for almost every race up prior to his race bans, there was something different on each one. Thankfully he stuck with his Belgian GP variant for the final few races. 

Finally for the Bell helmet users, we have Ayrton Senna's helmet. I've actually done a slight shape edit, because he ran the front lip from the Vortex on his M3 helmet. There are pictures of him testing out the Indy version of the Vortex, but that was only in pre-season. Again, this helmet was completely redesigned to fit this helmet shape as well as possible, and that includes the Rothmans logo on the front which is actually more on the top on the Bell helmet. Anyway, that made the transition between the two textures a little tricky, but I'm pleased with the overall result. The Senna S logo made its debut on his helmet at the Imola weekend, the logo then appearing on Williams cars for 27 years and now McLaren cars. 

Arai Helmets

As I was finishing the Bell helmets, I decided to revisit the Arai helmets. That's because there's more resources available now to make more accurate liveries and logo placements and variations. 

In this update, there are 25 variations of the Arai shape, with variations on which side the radio jacks are attached, to the various accessories that the drivers ran, and even down to which balaclavas they preferred. Because of the growing complexity of number of shapes and changes through the season, as well as the growing size of the mod, I've decided to remove the solid visor versions. 

Having created hundreds of modern day F1 helmets, I've tried to apply the same principles and lessons learned on these older helmets. It's in looking at the details, I found I could improve the accuracy of the Arai helmets. I had hoped to have overhauled all the Arai helmets, but sadly I ran out of time. There's always the next update. 

I will detail the specific changes in another post in the future, however suffice to say here that there are new Arai helmet textures for: Adams, Alboreto, Blundell, Brabham, Coulthard, Deletraz, Frentzen, Hill, Inoue, Irvine, Katayama, Lagorce, Lamy, Lehto (altered from previous version), Mansell, Morbidelli, Panis, Ratzenberger, Salo, Verstappen and Wendlinger. They all come with track specific changes through the year. 

New Marshall

This new Marshall is based on work by 32bobo32. All I really did was redesign the bib (or tabard) to 1994 standards and taking some artistic liberties so I didn't need to create track specific versions. 

Simhub added

I've also brought in Augustogibim's Simhub Dashboard as an option. It looks quite similar to the original GP4 dash. Because it does cover the cockpits and steering wheels, you can choose whether to use it or not in the CSM menus of both the Basic & Advanced versions. 

Car Updates

I'm grateful for Quickslick who has compiled more updates on the Footwork. These are not only livery updates, but a few shape updates too. This car remains an interim version until I have time to make my own version. 

I've also updated the cockpits of the Footwork and Sauber, which were made in the F1C conversion. 

I've also done some updates to the mid-season Williams, bringing in the front wings from my FW16B to the old car, along with the front suspension and driver body. It's a relatively small change, but it just adds more detail to the original car. 

The Benetton B194 now has some more shape variants to go with the track specific textures. I've run out of time and I have not done a true low downforce spec for the German and Italian GP. Changes include three different front wing variants, different rear wing configurations and different onboard camera positions. The fuel cap is also track specific and the Spanish GP engine cover has the holes covered in. 

But the headline release for this mod is a newly created Tyrrell 022. 

This car has its roots in the 1993 Tyrrell 021 that I created over 15 years ago, with most of the internals and rear suspension, and one version of the rear wing brought over and amended from that car. 

For this build, unusually for me, I started building from the rear and worked forward, because the internals was the first thing completed. The diffuser and cockpit dashboards were already created for v4.0, so it was really about building the car around it. Thankfully, there weren't too many changes throughout the year and I've also created some variants. 

Tyrrell were one of the first guinea pigs of the T-Cam position as well as the in-helmet onboard camera view. 

Again I ran out of time to create a true low downforce spec. The livery was quite simple and the logos I had already collected or were kindly provided to me by Oggo. 

I've created two season specific interim upgrades for the Minardi and Jordan and now that's 8 scratch built cars I've created since 2017. I hope to go back and create more track specific changes to my existing cars, but also to bring you the remaining 6 cars I intend to build in the future. 

Installation Notes

You need Zaz Tools installed, as well as GPxPatch, essential tools for your GP4. 

Then you need to download each part below. Install the CSM mod first, then the updates (in no particular order). You need every part installed (although the GP2 addon is optional, it is recommended that you install that too).

CSM mod
Essential CSM update part 1 (half of the cars)
Essential CSM update part 2 (the other half cars)
Essential CSM update part 3 (the helmet textures)
Recommended CSM update part 4 (GP2 addon)

The mod is designed to work with the 1994 Trackpack.

Be sure to check and change the mod's configurables in CSM before running the mod. 

Have a look at previous blog entries and articles about the 1994 season and mod. 

Happy racing.